


Celebrindal

by FactorialRabbits



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (technically. She's like... 17 equivalent), Ableism, Child Injury, Gen, Major Character Injury, Mentions of various other characters - Freeform, Prosthetics, Referenced Minor Canonical Character Death, background idril/tuor - Freeform, external ableism, internal ableism, misused religious ideas, religion as excuse for ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26088379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FactorialRabbits/pseuds/FactorialRabbits
Summary: Eärendil helps his mother pick her outfit for the day.AlternativelyIdril learns to create, to live, and to wear beautiful things.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31
Collections: Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020





	Celebrindal

**Author's Note:**

> So, hi, I'm back in the Tolkien fandom, for a bit at least. This fic was originally intended as a relatively simple love-letter to a character I have a lot of feelings about, Idril Celebrindal, Princess of Gondolin.
> 
> In the end... Maybe its still that, maybe it isn't, but it turned into a little bit of an exploration of disability, and a little bit personal. Not an in depth one - I think I'd need years and 20,000 words at least for that - but one none the less. While I do not have prostheses, I am heavily dependant on a wheelchair, and a lot of my feelings are a little... projected. Luckily for Idril I didn't make her leg break on her, but it was a near run thing.
> 
> Heavily Fall of Gondolin from Book of Lost Tales, where everything's a little bit weird tech, as opposed to the silmarillion version. It very nearly went full steampunk, but I didn't have time - maybe another time.
> 
> So, I hope you are all safe and well, and I hope you enjoy, or at least get something out of this. I adore baby Earendil so if nothing else please give him your love. Maybe also to the concept of Idril as a highly skilled mechanic and smith? I mean that's cool, right?
> 
> And, thank you to the lovely theninewalkers, whose tumblr can be found [here](https://theninewalkers.tumblr.com/), without whom this wouldn't exist, the Council Room who listened to me scream in vague terms every time I realised I'd written myself into a hole, and A&A, my delightful betas who would rather I didn't use their names.
> 
> The full art can be found [here](https://imgur.com/a/T4KmaPa)
> 
> ~ Factorial

It is a rainy morning, the sort that makes old injuries ache and the world be reborn anew. Idril sits in her window, watching the oncoming storm as the droplets splash down onto the stone streets of Gondolin below. Tuor left to train with the other lords some hours ago. Sometimes, Idril follows him, to watch and cheer on - or against - her husband as he spars. Not today, though, today is for thinking and tea and for the safety of the world indoors.

Her mind flickers from place to place, ruminating on her dreams of late; they are getting more frequent, she needs to pick up the pace. If she sends Tuor and Voronwe into town later, keeps Hendor to pick his brains over if there are more people they can safely send to work on the tunnel...

She does not hear the knock at the door, if there is one at all, but she does hear the excited cry of “mother!” before a tiny bundle jumps up and into her arms.

“Good morning, Little Jewel,” she pulls her son up onto her lap, only briefly wondering how he slipped his nurse this time.

“Good morning,” he beams back, sun as much in his smile as it is in his hair. “Uncle Salgant said I should visit today, that he might teach me to play harp; will mother not come too?”

Idril runs a hand over his hair, smiling at his laughter. She doubts Lord Salgant will appreciate a guest this side of luncheon, but the man needs a little reminding of the proper order of the day. And, he is incapable of saying no to her little Eärendil. “I would be delighted to come watch you play; mother just needs to dress, then we shall set out.”

Eärendil nods, but does not yet remove himself from her lap.

Ah. One of those mornings; Idril kisses her son’s forehead, earning her a giggle and a little squirming, “why don’t you go choose me something to wear, while I brush my hair, hm?”

With her words she gives him a little prod in the direction of her wardrobes. Pleased to have a task, he runs off to oblige.

Almost as soon as he has turned from her, her face falls a little. The day aches, injuries flare, her brush is on the dresser.

She pulls herself up on strong arms, using the wall to keep her balance as she hops over that way. Centuries of practice see easy balance, even as she transfers from standing to sitting, but her old wound aches none the less.

* * *

It began, or it ended, or maybe it just changed, on an innocuous day in late summer. They still lived in Nevrast at the time, Idril herself being nearly, but not quite, her full adult height.

Her uncles Celegorm and Curufin had been visiting, the former for her aunt and the latter discussing the logistics of construction with her father. A common enough occurrence, really.

Even the call for a hunt had not been unusual - not only were it more useful now, but it had ever been a favourite pastime of her aunt and one uncle - even if the invite for Idril herself to join them was a little stranger. 

She was thrilled to be spending more time with her aunt and uncle, and her father needed only a little convincing, so off they went.

“It will be good for her,” aunt Aredhel had argued. “Beleriand is what it is; all the guards and weapons practice in the world will not help if we are attacked. This way she gets practical experience with her bow, and chasing deer is far safer than orc.”

A few horror stories about exactly how terribly wrong things could go from both of her visiting uncles, and he had consented to their little trip.

Idril could ride as well as any elf not sworn to Maglor’s cavalry, and was a decent shot during practice. Her preference was for the sword, but no exile was trained in any less than three weapons, the bow among them. And, knowing her inexperience, she carefully followed every instruction her aunt and uncle gave.

It was, then, not a lack of skill or foresight that led to what followed, just terrible luck.

They caught sight of a likely looking deer not far from one of the streams, and gave chase. Between the trees, around rocks, over the water.

She had crossed this stream a thousand times on horseback - on the same horse, even - at speed and going slowly and every other pace imaginable. Never had there before been trouble doing so.

But there is a first time for everything.

Before even noticing her horse had slipped on something, Idril was falling and screaming.

She does not remember much of what followed.

Pain, water, agony; Aunt Aredhel’s voice trying to soothe as she picked her up, and Uncle Celegorm’s yells. Bandages, herbs, absolute agony; her father's hands on her cheeks, her ears, her forehead. Uncle Curufin glaring at aunt Aredhel and uncle Celegorm, berating them for leaving him to fix all of the problems they caused. 

The slow adjustment to not being able to leave herself, of how crutches wore and tore and grew the muscles of her arms even as her remaining leg weakened.

And then, one day, uncle Curufin returning with a simple, but large, box, containing in it what appeared to be a perfectly formed leg.

* * *

“Mother?”

Idril looks over to see Eärendil, sat in her wardrobe and surrounded by fallen dresses. She sighs, but does not query as she puts her brush back down; she really should have expected such, letting him have free reign of her things, “yes, Eärendil?”

“Why do you have a broken leg in here?” he holds up one of her prosthetics - the oldest, long taken apart for experimentation and parts, though still bordering on functional.

“I take pieces out of it if the others break,” she smiles, gently. “I was not this tall yet when I used that one; even if I repaired it, it would be too short for me now.”

Eärendil turns back to look at her, seemingly horrified by the idea of her ever having not been so tall.

“I took it apart to learn how it worked, when it got too small for me.” She elaborates.

“Like grandfather has me take apart his towers?” he asks, eyes bright.

It is hard not to laugh at the reminder of her father’s ways; usually it is the children who build the tower of blocks, but no. Her father builds the tower, then asks her son to explain how it was done. 

“Yes,” she reaches out. “Just like that.”

* * *

The leg, of course, had not actually been an elven one. While it looked and felt as flesh to an outsider, it was a clever parody of fabric and animal skin wrapped around the complicated mechanics of the House of Feanor. Father seemed satisfied with it, and so Idril was too.

As old as she was, Idril had little growing left to do. When they moved to Gondolin, everything still fit well. Even too, when they sealed the gates.

In time, however, it did not; it was close, a near thing, but by the time she had stopped growing entirely the leg her uncle Curufin had crafted was slightly too short. While not immediately apparent to anyone else, it caused the slightest limp, in turn twisting her knees and her hips and her spine.

It hurt.

And so Idril went looking for a solution to the problem. She sought out the metalworkers and the mechanics and the theorists, asking each of them if they could make her a new leg, one which would fit.

Each of them said no; some recoiled at the idea, even requested by their Princess as it was, while others merely apologised that it was beyond their skillsets. She asked each and every person who might be able to - one did make an attempt, but it was useless and fell apart.

_Well,_ she thought, in a manner which would soon come to define not just her thinking but history itself. _If I want something done competently, I suppose I shall just have to learn and do it myself._

She did not know much about metalwork then, every part that she did learnt from days spent staring at her uncle Curufin, sat on a box in the corner of his workshop, aunt Aredhel having passed her to uncle Celegorm who passed her on in turn. She was, however, as much Noldor as she was anything; something as small as having had no lessons would not separate her from a craft if she willed it so.

The first thing she did was take the limb she was given, and slowly take it apart. On large sheets of paper she recorded every pin and turn and material. She separated them, like with like, fiddling with each until she worked out what it did. A pin here let that turn, a bolt there stopped this slipping, and so forth.

Only once she was certain that she knew how every piece interplayed and locked did she pull out more parchment. Onto it she marked up her own designs. At first, they were very similar to the one her Uncle Curufin had made her; not certain of the theory herself, she merely scaled up what had already been there. Complex and beautiful prosthetics she would eventually create, but not yet.

Then, she took her plans to the forge. A smith, paid to tolerate the Princess' fancies, made the pieces for her - she wished to do it herself, but with one leg now disassembled and scattered across her drawing table, it was not exactly safe to. 

And so, she watched.

Once all of the parts had been crafted and cooled, she brought them back to her work table. She assembled them as according to the design, each perfectly in place. She checked them against her papers, both her own design and the research on her uncle's, and tweaked until satisfied. Only then did she check the fit. And only when pleased with that did she attempt to stand on it.

She slowly leant her weight onto the limb, reaching out to catch herself on the desk incase it snapped behind her.

Which is exactly what it did.

A failure, then.

Not to be disheartened by a single failure, she simplified the design - on reflection, of course it had not worked; she had not a third the skill of her uncle Curufin - and tried again.

It broke again, she tried again. And again, and again, and again.

Eventually, one of her designs was a success. Unlike the one gifted it did not bend in the right places, nor did it look proper, nor did it move quite right. But it functioned better than no leg at all; she could stand, and walk, and could say that her leg was her own.

And, now that she could, she demanded lessons at the forge. Slowly, as with learning any craft, she came to know how to craft the pieces for herself. With nimble fingers and self-forged components, she formed herself a spare leg, identical to the prototype. 

Now function had been secured, he had mastered the simplest form. Now, she could start adding more features, refining and reforging, until the perfect became her reality.

* * *

Satisfied with her explanation, in a way children tend to either be quickly or never, Eärendil returns to ferreting around her wardrobe. Watching, he seems to have shortlisted a few dresses for her - she dreads the idea of wearing the blue one in this weather, but she did say he could choose - and is now trying to match a prosthetic to it in whichever way his young mind considers such things.

Watching from her place at the dresser, she sees him frown. It is a little funny at first, though when it deepens her own expression shifts to match.

“Is something wrong?”

He startles, looking up and over to her, “no.”

She waits for an elaboration, and gets none. After a few moments, she sighs, “why do you look sad, Little Jewel?”

“I am not sad,” he makes a point of correcting her, before pointing at one of her many legs. “This one is just offensively boring.”

Her heart curls a little at his words; of all of the prosthetics she has made herself over the years, he said that of the one her father is proudest of...

* * *

It took Idril not just years but centuries to master her craft. There is not much need for prosthetics in the early years of Gondolin; most who were so gravely injured as they crossed the ice, or later fought, died of their wounds.

Still, there were accidents, and small skirmishes in the mountains, and there was her own prosthetic to tinker with - and to create spares for.

With each pass, her creations looked a little more real. The amount of exposed metal receded, she perfected the painting technique, she learnt which combinations of animal skin and fabric gives which effects. There is more than just metalwork in her craft; there is mechanics, there is sewing, there is fabric lore and a necessity to intimately learn the ways of the hroa inside and out.

Idril studied, learnt, and refined. Until, one day, she achieved an almost perfect mimicry of an elven leg.

It looked like it had always been her own, the joints were constructed that they could move the same, and - with effort - she could extend her fea to move it in a natural looking way, too. Most of the time she did not bother with the last part, exhausting to the spirit as it was, but it was an accomplishment to achieve.

And, more than any functionality, the most precious part of the accomplishment was the way her father smiled when she showed him.

* * *

“Well, sometimes,” she begins to slowly explain. “I have need of a leg that just looks like a leg.”

“But its boring,” Eärendil scowls at the prosthetic in question, poking at it with his toes. “If I could have any leg I wanted, I would not have a boring one. I would want... “ he stops, thinking for a moment. “Fish on mine.”

Idril’s heart turns a little more in her chest, squeezing and choking at her. She takes a breath, casts the emotion away with a smile, and shakes her head. “Well, how about, when I am dressed, we add fish to your leg?”

“Really?” bright green eyes turn to her.

She nods, “really. Though, yours will wash off.”

He nods back, deathly serious, “then I can have dogs tomorrow?”

“If you like,” of course his acceptance is easy - her form being marred is all her son has ever known. And yet, it is so far a cry from the early reactions, that she still does not quite believe it is real. “Though you should ask your father about that; I do not draw dogs very well.”

“No,” Eärendil agrees. “You draw them badly.”

Idril can do nothing but choke back her own laughter at the absolute dead sincerity he replies to her with. 

* * *

Perfection, however, was never enough; a perfect minicary of the elven form was one thing, but no Noldor can ever be content with setting their craft aside. Still, creating body parts was a dangerous thing. Before she could continue, Idril questioned to her self if she was not seeking to imitate Eru in her building of limbs. She questioned, reasoned, concluded no; her prosthetics could not heal themselves and nor did the fea naturally flow into them, and she never intended to make either so.

Then, the next question; how should she then improve her craft?

Once she had realised the answer, she saw that it had always been obvious; it was traditional for a woman of the Noldor to have her wedding clothes prepared from a young age. Idril's own, crafted by her mother as was expects, had been lost to the ice and the ocean when she was but a child. As such, the dress folded into the engraved chest at the bottom of her wardrobe was not quite in keeping with their traditions, but - as with many things in Gondolin - it was as close an approximation as there could be. Aunt Aredhel had made it with the help of her mother's friends, in the closest approximation of a Vanya wedding dress as they could manage. The jewelry was from her father and uncles, the headpiece ignored for the irritation she finds such things, and the rest had been collected from and crafted by various members of the extended family.

Usually, Idril was content to ignore the entire thing. Marriage was... It was not that she objected to marriage, as some people did, just that she had never found someone she desired in such a way. Eru would have created and destined her other half. It would come in time; maybe they were still in Valinor, their paths split. Maybe it was one of those cases where her destined was to be much younger than her. Maybe she, like aunt Findis, was destined to never wed. It would come in time, or it would not, and if her dreams were as true as she suspected them to be, it would be the former.

The circumstances of the day she realised how to refine her craft, however, were not usual; three Lords had returned without Aunt Aredhel. Exhausted by her father's anger and grief, Idril saught out comfort in the things her aunt had a hand in. Fur cloaks and rugs she had hunted down herself; trinkets and jewels she had bought, crafted, or squirreled from her cousins; the wedding dress and veil aunt Aredhel had made in place of her mother, more delicate and beautiful than most thought her hands capable of being.

Fingering the lace and the delicate embroidery, she began to wonder... If she could perfect the appearance of her skin, why could she not do other things? Her prosthetic was only made of metal, after all. And what were the Noldor famed for, if not the beauty of their metal-work?

Rebellion and stupidity, most likely, but those were not associations she wished to associate her father with.

She dragged her jewels and dress over to her worktable, and made study of the patterns they were decorated with. Charted the swirls and the flowers and the colours, and reforged them into a new design.

Not yet confident that she could make it, Idril began with simpler pieces once again. Some of it - the carving, the inlays, the like - she practiced on jewels and pins and tokens, while working out which parts of the prosthetic could be carved away could only be done on one.

As for testing, she tucked her new, prettier, more intricate legs under her skirts. While they could not be seen, there was an extra confidence in wearing something beautiful then. If anyone noticed slightly more sips and stumbles, well, she just told them she was testing a new way of assembling the ankle joint, in the hopes of being able to dance.

It was true that she was also doing that, dancing having never quite been possible on her old ones, if more for the frostbite damage to her other foot than the prosthetic’s flaws -and so the truth was stretched.

Eventually, there was no more need for testing; Idril set to her workshop - a benefit of being the Princess, privacy - and set to work. It took weeks of fine tuning and adjustment but, eventually, it was done.

One last time she checked the colours matched those of her wedding dress, and that the petals twisted the same way. Finding nothing but complete harmony - something not even achieved by the clothes, with a dress in the fashion of the Vanyar, yet a shawl of the Noldor, and boots that could not really be called anything but the offspring of Gondolin.

It was finished, and it was time to present her masterpiece.

Proudly, she presented her leg to her father, seeking his approval for the addition to her wedding garments. He did not refuse her request, as he never refused any request, but... He had frowned. And the Lords tutted, and whispers started upon them seeing it.

Idril, cowed, returned to her rooms and hid it away.

* * *

It is quite for a long moment, Eärendil’s eyes seeming to look through Idril’s flesh and into her soul. His cheerful expression fades, into something more… elven, than the mannish childishness she usually expects of him.

“Mother is sad,” he leaves what he was doing to come over, tightly gripping her leg with a hug. “I’m sorry.”

She strokes a hand over his hair, smiling softly as she does so, “it is nothing you did.”

“But someone hurt you,” he clings harder. “They made you sad.”

“That’s a risk you have to take,” she hums the words more than speaks them, trying to soothe, distracted as she is. “People hurt one another sometimes. It is just one of the ways the world is marred.”

“Eru should unmar it,” Eärendil huffs into her leg. “He’s mean.”

“The ways of Eru are not ours to know,” she gently corrects, not contradicting the simple statement she has sometimes been tempted to make herself, but not agreeing to it either. “We will never understand Eru’s ways; should anyone claim to you they do, they are wrong. Sometimes we are given hints and clues and dreams, but that is all we can know.”

He doesn’t seem to grasp what she says, but then she did not really expect him to. Eärendil is, afterall, only a child. Let his innocence remain a little longer.

* * *

Years passed in almost the blink of an eye. Idril walked on legs that matched one another, not even her maker's mark on her false one. She continued to forge replacement parts as they wore out, and other items as required. Cousin Maeglin arrived, Aunt Aredhel died, and the dreams began. Terror for a child she had not even considered before began to surge in her mind, and she turned her thoughts to controlling that. Their people went to war, and those that returned were decimated. 

Her specific skills were then called into use, and yet she could find no joy in it. Day after day after month she bent over her workbench and the forge and infirmary beds, crafting prosthetics for those who had lost limbs in the battle. Most, she noted, were arms; people who lose legs are at a disadvantage when it becomes time to flee.

The thought then crossed her mind that she should make and store spare arms, that something was coming, sooner or later, and they would be needed. It did not sound like a thought of her own, indeed it sounded like the thoughts of foresight she was prone to have, and so she did exactly that. In that little free time she had, she began to make spare prosthetics, as well as those needed ones she crafted by day.

Each and every one was boring, and her marker’s mark remained internal. She refused anything less than perfection in every one of her pieces, but there was certainly no time for experimentation.

And then, when everyone was seen to… Idril stopped. She was still requested and contracted for repairs, but it was hardly as common a matter. Sometimes she added to her pile of spares, hidden as many results of her foresight tended to be, but the urgency of that thought had lessened, too.

With nothing else to do, she returned to her workbench, redesigning and redesigning her own prosthetic. A little lighter, a little less material, but never anything that looked anything other than a normal, natural leg.

It hurt her heart, when she caught sight of her other designs; she wanted to craft them, to wear them, but the way her father had frowned… It was not something she could bring herself to do. Even if she did not yet understand.

In the end… She needed an answer as to why. But, she could not ask her father, for she already knew the pained expression he would make and how he would avoid a response. She could not ask her mother or aunt, dead as they were, nor the multitude of uncles now either dead or on the far side of the walls. Her other aunt, the one she would forget she had at times, was over there, too.

And so, late one night, she snuck her way into the servant’s quarters of the palace, and asked her questions of the one person who had always had an answer: “why does my father disprove of me seeking to refine my craft?”

"Eru made us perfectly," the woman who was once her nurse, and yet served her father, explained to her. "As such, it is neither fitting nor proper for us to seek to change his design."

'My design is already broken,' she wished to argue back. 'My leg does not even exist any more. Surely trying to imitate Eru's works by identical appearance is the greater heresy? Nobody will look at an enameled leg and think it is real, mistake my work for Eru's. Surely that is fine? Better, even? How know all Gondolin the voice of Eru, and yet not I?'

Idril, however, said nothing. Uncertain, unsure, not willing to fight over a thing she had doubts in her stance towards, or against such deeply held beliefs.

* * *

Eventually, Eärendil pulls away from her leg. It is sudden, almost as though he realises something, and he darts back to the wardrobe.

Idril watches fondly as he squirrels around, looking for something. In the end it is a leg that he uncovers, silver and grey and inlaid with swirls of blue and green. With leaves and petals of pink and white, and little holes where she has carved the metal away for weight. He brings it cover, knocking it a little on a table, before proudly presenting it to her.

“Here,” he pushes it into her lap, one chubby hand wrapped around the ankle and another through a piece of filigree. “You put your leg on while I choose your dress!”

He looks so proud of himself, so she smiles, and kisses his cheek, “of course; and a shawl? Lord Salgant’s house is a little cold.”

Eärendil nods, serious again, and runs back to the wardrobe. 

Idril, for her part, reaches down, and begins strapping and locking the prosthetic into place. A click here, a strap there, a habitual thing after so long.

The filigree makes it a little more complicated to put into place, as the straps need to attach without tangling in it, but it is not near as complicated as the one she wore on her wedding day.

She so nearly had not worn it at all; in the end, though, she was glad to have done so.

* * *

The day of Idril’s wedding was, as ever for such things, chaotic. She had managed to shoo away most of her maids, sending them on pointless errands to give herself some space. Still, one remained, unfolding the clothes from her wedding chest and helping her tie the ribbons, and pin the broaches holding the arrangement together. Meleth was her name, a younger elf than most in Gondolin, and recently bought into her household. Still, she was reliable and unflappable in the way many of Idril’s other maids, as dear as each of them were to her, were not. And, unlike her old nurse, Meleth was not inclined towards treating her like an infant.

"Why don't you wear this too?" Meleth picked up the intricately carved leg she had made centuries ago, still perfect in every way. The filigree to match her crown and her jewelry, the engraved and inlaid flowers to match the embroidery of her dress.

Idril looked at it, stomach curling in disgust. How many centuries had it been since she had seen it? Since she had naively looked to wear such a thing?

It must have shown on her face, for the maid hesitated a moment, her face falling, “is something the matter? It was in the chest…”

The question asked, Idril now had a choice. Either she explained her mistake, that she should never have placed it in her wedding chest, or she did not, and she wore it. 

Her maid continued to fret, and Idril could not be having that; she was already stressed enough, the weight of her wedding and the prophecies surrounding it already thick in her head. So she made a gesture, took the thing she had once called beautiful - and, technically, it still was, just it were tainted now - and sat down.

Unstrapping the leg she wore was easy, practiced. Buckling the one for the wedding into place was harder. While it was just as functional and carefully made, over the years she had vastly simplified the attachments. 

Her maid continued to hover, as if she wanted to help; there was little she could do with this specific piece.

And then… As though Idril had not betrayed some unspoken agreement with her father and her nurse and the world at whole, they carried on. Layers of fabrics and jewels and metals, the fusion of the traditions of Noldor and Vanyar done more by making her wear half as much clothing again as trying to fuse it all.

The wedding came, the wedding went, her glorious, mortal husband and she made their way to their marriage bed. Away with layers and layers and robes and clothing, undressing one another as much as they did themselves.

He reached her leg, and Tuor stopped.

Idril froze.

Silence reigned for an unending second, before he ran his fingers over the carving, smiled an, “it’s beautiful”, and carried on his way.

The next morning, she found another of the beautiful legs she had crafted in the past, a practice piece, and put it on. She hid it under petticoats and skirts and brocade, held her head high, and pretended nothing had changed.

* * *

Eärendil takes longer to choose her dresses than even the maids, constantly looking back to squint at the leg he has chosen, as though he actually cares to match the colours or designs. His nurse finally ducks in, having realised where he has gone; Idril shoos her away, as politely as one can do such a thing; it is fine, she will watch her own son for now. Meleth is more than likely glad for the day off, away from the terror that Eärendil is wont to be.

Idril picks out her jewelry - bracelets, a ring, earrings and cuff and chain for her flesh-formed foot - while he makes up his mind. She braids back a little of her hair, to stop the wind blowing it into her eyes and nothing more, and paints her nails. Her son is unlikely to choose colours that completely match, so she does not either; she wears silver with gold with brass, and loves every moment of the opportunity.

“Mother, I have chosen,” he finally says, long after her nail paint has dried. 

She nods to him, and stands, habitually testing that she has attached her leg correctly, and that it will bear her weight, before walking over to join him, “what have you chosen for me?”

“These,” he holds up a bright green dress and a pale blue shawl, surprisingly well matched given his usual tendencies.

“Thank you,” she smiles, taking them from him. “Why don’t you go collect your bag for the day, while I dress? It should be by the door.”

Eärendil beams at her, pleased for another task, before heading out of her room.

She changes quickly - the green gown is simple, while the shawl embroidered. It is the sort of combination of clothing her father might have chosen, and the comparison makes her smile. She pulls the more delicately embroidered edge to sit atop her shoulders, and lets the fabric of the shawl cascade just as her dress.

The dress itself has slits down the side, though only as high as her knees. A little lower, even. It displays both of her lower legs - one flesh, one metal - as a few of her dresses do. More practically it makes it easier to run, something often necessary with a young child in tow. It is also something beautiful; how long was it, for which she could not run? She is uncertain - too long, is her only reply.

Far, far too long.

* * *

The years when the fashion was narrower, slitted dresses, Idril was careful to avoid them. With her loose hair she already had a reputation for disregarding fashion, and it was easy enough for people to explain away; exposed skin was dangerous with her specific craft, she did not like people seeing the scars where her leg met the prosthetic, her husband being strange and mortal had a different view of modesty and she wished to respect it, she was old fashioned.

None of those were true, except for the first. But, she did not wear dresses in the workshop regardless; no, with the smallest encouragement from Tuor, she was wearing decorated, intricate prosthetics once again. Where once they had made her stand tall and proud, now she hesitated. What if someone saw? Judged? Caused trouble over so small a thing?

In some ways, with the explanations she had been given, it felt… dirty, too. 

Idril knew, by her own reasoning, that it was no insult to Eru that she crafted beautiful things. Tuor, the voice of Ulmo himself, had talked through it with her, late one night, and had come to agree. Of course she would rather have her original leg back, and of course her prosthetics would never come close to a flesh leg, so why was it a problem? Was it not more vain to seek to imitate his work perfectly? And yet the words that had been said still wormed their way, and made her doubt, made her seek reassurance even after the conclusion had been reached.

Each time she stepped out, she gained a little confidence. Each continuing dream of the horrors to come, she was a little more certain that the Valar hated her, but that it had nothing to do with her prosthetics. Not hate her, exactly, that wasn’t true. Trusted her to actually do something, unlike the rest of the city? More likely.

And then, eventually, she slipped up; it was early in the morning and Eärendil, then only a few months old, was screaming for want of sleep. So, she had grabbed the first dress and the first leg in reach, and taken him outside.

Idril walked and hummed and rocked her son, cooing and singing and trying to soothe. She walked and walked and walked, all around the streets of Gondolin. She greeted the night watch, Tuor included, chatted with the bakers and the workmen who awoke before dawn, stumbled her way home as he finally fell asleep, and crashed back to bed without so much as another thought.

It was only the next morning that she realised the dress she had grabbed was a gift and slitted, and that the leg was even more intricate than her wedding prosthetic had been.

Well, if nobody had questioned her doing it once… Maybe it was time to try again?

* * *

By the time Eärendil returns, she has mostly fixed the mess made of her wardrobe. Nothing is damaged - he is messy, but careful, like his father in so many ways. The legs she puts back in their places, checking each a little more closely as she does.

He has not managed to uncover her most recent design; that is… likely for the best.

She pulls it out anyway, knowing the risk, but determined none the less.

It is an ugly thing, barely shaped like a leg at all. Dark and crude, simple like even her earliest were not. It is designed to be functional, but without any parts that could break. There is no stone inlay, no paint, no pretty golden patterns. It sits in her cupboard with two sets of mail also made by her hand - one to fit herself, the other… the other sized as for a child.

The door squeaks back open, and she turns to see her son. Quickly she moves towards him, sweeping him up and onto her hip in a graceful, single movement.

He settles on the hip over her prosthetic; the stump whines with the rain, but there is no pain in that ankle and never will be again.

"Well then, why don't we go bother your uncle Salgant now, hum?" she twists a little, settling her son into a more comfortable position. “He should really be awake by now, do you not agree?”

He shrieks and grabs her waist, it turning into a laugh as he hugs her.

So tiny, even now, her Ardamírë. So tiny, and with such a fate on his shoulders... Idril gently bops him on the nose as she takes him downstairs.

Someday, and soon if her predictions are correct, the world will crush his laughter and his light. Maybe he will learn it again, maybe he will not; that is further ahead than Eru sees fit to reveal to her.

But, she will protect it as best she may; she ignores the curious look he throws at the ugly, crude leg on the floor, and distracts him from questions with discussion of dog and bird and fish. It is easy enough to do; he is young and curious, and she is old and knows so many things.

Yet, for all she knows, she has no idea how explain to a child why she owns a leg that will never be beautiful, nor look like a real one, but is strong and enduring and resistant to even dragon fire and acid rain.

And so she avoids the question for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> In the Shibboleth of Feanor, Earendil's mother name is said to be Ardamire - Jewel of Arda - coming from a vision of him sailing the sky with the silmaril, though she didn't know how he could possibly get there, as her pregnancy prophecy. It doesn't contradict other things, so I like to use it. 'Little Jewel' is a nickname coming from this. 'Little Wave' is the one used by Tuor, and sometimes his parents switch. But its nice to have specific nicknames. At least I think so.
> 
> Idril's dreams are a reference to those in The Lost Tales version of the Fall of Gondolin, which tends to be my default when working there. Except for contradictions. Just because I like it.


End file.
